UK Military Involvement in the Middle East – A Call for Restraint and Accountability

Letter to My MP, Pippa Heylings

Dear Pippa Heylings,

I am writing as a constituent in South East Cambridgeshire to express my deep concern at reports that the UK is deploying RAF jets to the Middle East at the request of the United States, following Iran’s retaliation for Israel’s recent airstrike on Iranian territory. Keir Starmer’s apparent support for this move (as reported by the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqg440v0gxo) is deeply troubling.

Let me state plainly that I was appalled by the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. The murder and abduction of civilians are indefensible. Yet Israel’s response — the wholesale destruction of Gaza, mass civilian casualties, the encouragement of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and strikes in Lebanon — has been profoundly disproportionate. Its recent attack on Iranian soil is not an act of self-defence but a dangerous provocation, further destabilising an already volatile region.

Israel’s actions go far beyond the remit of legitimate defence. The scale of retribution — by some estimates more than 40 times the number of deaths caused by the Hamas attacks — cannot be squared with any moral or legal standard. The IDF’s so-called "evacuation orders" appear increasingly as instruments of forced displacement, contributing to what many are now recognising as a campaign of ethnic cleansing. These are not the actions of a state merely defending itself, but of one operating with impunity.

In this context, I am horrified that the UK is actively supporting Israel militarily, even indirectly. Sending RAF aircraft into the region signals complicity. Far from being a stabilising force, this risks drawing Britain into a regional — or even global — conflict. It is reckless and short-sighted.

I want to emphasise that my views are not shaped by long-standing allegiance to any political or ideological faction. Nor can they be dismissed as antisemitic — I am a hereditary Jew myself. I write not out of hostility toward Israel as a Jewish state, but from a deep unease at the direction its current government has taken, and from an equally deep concern for the suffering of innocent people — Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Iranian and beyond — caught in the crossfire of these escalating policies.

I urge you to press for a more courageous and principled stance from the Labour leadership. At a minimum, the UK should halt arms sales to Israel and unequivocally oppose any further military entanglement in the region. We should be using our diplomatic weight to de-escalate, not inflame.

What specific steps will you take to hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions, and to stop the UK from being complicit in further escalation? How will you advocate for an end to the appalling human suffering in Gaza?

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Ellis